Well-known disparities exist in rates of obesity and drowning, two public health priorities. Addressing these disparities by increasing access to safe swimming and water recreation may yield benefits for both obesity and injury prevention. Everyone Swims, a community partnership, brought community health clinics and water recreation organizations together to improve policies and systems that facilitated learning to swim and access to swimming and water recreation for low-income, diverse communities. Based in King County, Washington, Everyone Swims launched with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention grant funding from 2010 to 2012. This partnership led to multiple improvements in policies and systems: higher numbers of clinics screening for swimming ability, referrals from clinics to pools, more scholarship accessibility, and expansion of special swim programs. In building partnerships between community health/public health and community recreation organizations to develop systems that address user needs in low-income and culturally diverse communities, Everyone Swims represents a promising model of a structured partnership for systems and policy change to promote health and physical activity.

Increasing PFD use, safety features on the boat and alcohol non-use are key strategies and non-motorised boaters are key target populations to prevent boating deaths.

Background: Drowning remains the third leading cause of unintentional injury death for adolescents in the United States. Aims: This study described adolescent swimming lessons, behaviors (life jacket wear while boating) and comfort (swimming in deep water) and their association with protective and risk factors and risk-taking behaviors reported by Washington State students in Grades 8, 10, 12, primarily comprised of youth ages 13 to 18 years. Methods: This study used the 2014 Washington State Healthy Youth Survey (HYS), a publicly available dataset. Results: Most students reported having had swimming lessons, using life jackets, and comfort in deep water. Differences reflected racial, ethnic and socioeconomic disparities: being White or Caucasian, speaking English at home and higher maternal education. Lowest rates of comfort in deep water were among Hispanics or Latino/Latinas followed by Blacks or African Americans. Greater life jacket wear while boating was reported by females, those in lower grades and negatively associated with alcohol consumption, sexual activity and texting while driving. Having had swimming lessons was associated with fewer risk-taking behaviors. Conclusions: The HYS was useful to benchmark and identify factors associated with drowning risk among adolescents. It suggests a need to reframe approaches to promote water safety to adolescents and their families. Multivariate analysis of this data could identify the key determinants amongst the racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities noted and provide stronger estimation of risk-taking and protective behaviors.

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Drowning is a public health concern that disproportionally affects children and minorities in Washington State. Community health educators from Seattle Children’s Hospital designed a Water Safety Education and Lifejacket Giveaway Program for low-income parents of preschool-aged children from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. The program was interpreted into multiple languages and parents and children in attendance received free lifejackets. The mixed-methods pilot evaluation of this program found statistically significant relationships between language and self-reported parent swim skill level (English-speaker OR 4.6; 95%CI: 1.84 – 11.54); and confidence of keeping one’s child safe (English-speaker OR 3.34; 95%CI: 1.10 – 10.4). Additionally, parents who self-reported that they could swim had four times the odds of feeling confident in keeping their children safe around the water (95% CI: 1.21 - 13.28). Qualitative data from follow-up interviews identified that the program boosted parent knowledge and confidence in safe water practices. Multi-lingual delivery and the role of partner preschools was critical to this program’s success. Specific programmatic focus on adult parent/caregiver skills and knowledge that reduce risk around the water should be a priority for future efforts to reduce drowning.